Highlights:
Most of the engineering graduates lack skills and are eventually failing in interviews as they do not meet the company’s expectations.

Enrollment in engineering courses has been declining for the past two years which is revealing a fact that engineering courses are losing allure. The reason is stagnant job market. The career options in engineering have been becoming limited, and most of the engineering graduates fail to find suitable jobs.

The number of students joining government and private engineering colleges has declined drastically. As per records, around 1,00,000 enrollments have been dropped in the past two years. Last year, only half of the engineering seats were filled across the country.

All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) discussed the disappointing trend at a meeting recently. States like Orissa and Madhya Pradesh requested Ministry of Human Resource and Development to conduct demand and supply analysis before granting approval to new engineering colleges.

On an average, only one out of three engineering students is securing a job in campus placements. The placement percentage has been increased to 40% in 2015-16. It was 31% in 2013-14. However, the number of graduates has increased as new institutes have come up in the past few years and some of the engineering colleges or institutes increased intake.

On the other hand, most of the engineering graduates lack skills and are eventually failing in interviews as they do not meet the company’s expectations. Some of them do not possess proper knowledge about jobs and roles. So, ultimately they do not get employment. According to NASSCOM survey (2011), only 25% engineering graduates working in IT sector possess required skills.

On the contrary, many new engineering colleges are coming up every year. Hence, AICTE has to keep in mind the demand and supply in the job market while granting permissions to new colleges. As per data provided by AICTE, out of 8,00,000 enrollments in the year 2015-16, only 3,40,000 students secured jobs.

One of the officials of AICTE mentioned that most of the students are aspiring to join deemed varsities or national institutes like IITs, NITs, IIITs and so on and so forth.

For instance, there are 221 engineering colleges in Orissa with over 97,590 seats. However, in the previous academic session only 46, 601 students had enrolled. In Madhya Pradesh, there are 299 engineering colleges which offer 1,49,769 seats out of which only 82,048 seats had been filled in the last academic session. States like Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh also have the similar statistics in engineering enrolments.